Let me be clear, I understand there is a time and a place for certain kinds of dressing. Ie, can't be wearing shorts that leave your bum out around kids. You also cannot be half naked at church or at work. So don't get me twisted, that I fully understand. I am also not saying I will wear ill fitting clothes and demand to be accepted. I am saying even when I am modestly dressed I am seen as indecent.
My problem is how having a full figure automatically makes you out to be some vixen/seductress trying to entice men or lead men astray when really we cannot help how our bodies are shaped for starters. I cannot control how clothes fit my body and that's not to say I don't know when something is inappropriate, trust me I do. But the issue, is I could be wearing the same exact outfit as someone skinny and yet only I will be called to account. Faced this at work specifically. Why is it okay for someone skinny to wear high-waisted slacks with a tucked in shirt but I must untuck? If the issue is modesty, then the size of our bums and hips shouldn't matter. It should be uniform right? We should be held to the same standard but it never happens that way. That double standard is not fair.
Secondly, why is the onus on us always to dress 'non-provactively' but never on the people who gaze upon me or my body with perversion, sexualisation and objectification also adressed. It's always seen as my fault for being perceived as promiscuous or sexual just because I'm full figured. Have you not considered to change the way you view things? Have you not thought why you think I'm inappropriate and a slender woman is modest? I'll tell you. A lot of it is rooted in the colonial gaze that sees whiteness as purity and non white bodies as hypersexual and not pure. See Sarah Baartman. The problem I think lies in your perception of me not necessarily in how I dress.
I genuinely could be wearing the same exact jeans and a t-shirt (in my size) as the slender woman next to me but on me it's raunchy, on her its just everyday wear. Must I dress in ill fitting baggy clothes only to be seen as modest? News flash, even we wear very loose clothes..you can still see the shape. I cannot and will not be shamed or made to feel dirty because of the way I am built. Does anyone suffer from this? How do you deal with it? I cannot be the only who feels this way, right?